


There's No Normal After That

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Frottage, Getting Together, Hurt!Sam, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Episode: s11e17 Red Meat, Sick!Dean, Spoilers, hurt!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 12:39:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6520066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>After everything we survived together, I had to watch the man I love die...</em>
  <br/>
  <em>You can't lose him...</em>
</p><p> </p><p> <br/>Michelle's and Billie's words are rattling around in Dean's head long after he and Sam get back on the road, and Dean's having a hell of a time dealing with how precisely they happen to fit how he feels about the man sitting shotgun with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's No Normal After That

**Author's Note:**

> So, I guess I was more intensely displeased with the end of this episode, in particular Dean's lie of knowing Sam wasn't dead, than I initially thought. So, here's installment #2--the Wincest version of how I think it should have played out...

_After everything that we survived together, I watched the man I love die_.

That's what Michelle had said.

Dean gripped the wheel, stared out the windshield, and tried to remember how to breathe past the iron band around his lungs.

'Dean? Hey man, you good?' Sam asked from the passenger seat.

Dean could barely hear him over the rush of blood in his ears. He tried to focus on the traffic around him, but his vision was going staticky and gray at the edges.

 _There's no normal after that,_ she'd said.

Dean's heart slammed into his ribs and he swore it completely skipped a beat and twisted like a wet dishrag right there behind his breast bone. He pressed his forearm across his chest, like it might be able to hold his heart in if it suddenly tried to explode out of him, and hunched over.

'Jesus Christ,' he wheezed.

'Whoa! Whoa, Dean. Dean!' Sam grabbed at the dash as Dean swerved to the side of the road and rammed the shifter into park. 'Dean, what's wrong?'

Dean folded in on himself, arms crossing his chest, panting for breath. He was vaguely aware of Sam sliding across the seat, turning the keys to kill the engine and laying a broad palm, flat and warm at the base of his throat.

'Breathe, Dean. Breathe. Slow and easy. C'mon now,' Sam coaxed, rubbing lightly where his hand lay. 'Is it your ribs? 

Dean gave a stiff shake of his head, tried to focus on Sam's hand, the warmth of it, the way it soaked through his skin, reminded him his baby brother was alive and right beside him.

 _I watched the man I love die_.

Michelle's words echoed in his ears and the band around his chest tightened.

'Shit,' he gasped and doubled over, only the press of Sam's hand keeping him from clocking himself on the steering wheel.

'Jesus! Dean?' Sam's voice was steel drum tight, screwed down hard on the panic Dean was probably causing him, but Dean couldn't help it. Bile surged up his throat, gagging him. He coughed, choked for a second, felt Sam's arms go around him and haul him across the bench seat and out onto his knees in the gravel where he immediately dropped to his hands and threw up in the dirt. Sam was on the ground beside him, one arm around Dean's chest to hold him up and the other braced against the Impala's side to steady them both.

Dean gagged again, retched so hard his back bowed with it, and tipped over against Sam's side, sending them both to the ground in a tumble because Sam was in too much pain and too weak at the moment to hold both their weights. Dean lay across Sam's thigh, panting and gasping for air, wheezing in his efforts to oxygenate himself. Sam's hand tucked into the short hair at the back of his neck and squeezed there, but it was shaky with adrenaline and pain.

'Dean, you okay?'

Dean nodded weakly, finally feeling blessed air inflating his lungs. The downside to that was his broken ribs were on fire again, stabbing into his side like a hot blade. He groaned and wrapped an arm around himself.

'Well, if it _wasn't_ your ribs, it is now,' Sam said wryly. He sounded a little breathless. 

Dean cracked an eye to look up at him. Sam was sitting with his back to the Impala, left arm pinned tight to his side, teeth gritting in pain, and only one shade away from gray. Sweat beaded at his hairline and trickled down his temples. Dean struggled to sit up and lean against the car beside him.

'What the hell were you thinking with that stunt?' Dean rasped. 'Huh? You probably ripped every last damn one of your stitches.'

'I was thinking,' Sam said, 'that my brother was having a full blown panic attack, and he would never forgive me if I let him throw up in his baby.'

Dean paused to think a second then bobbed his head. 'True.'

Sam barked a laugh, but paid for it with a hard twinge in his side that made him flinch.

'Hey, _you_ okay?' Dean asked.

'Yeah. Fine,' Sam said, tightly. 'Or I will be in a minute. I don't suppose you want to talk about what the hell that was?'

Dean rolled his head against the cool steel of the Impala's body, thankful once again for her solid strength. He was suddenly exhausted, could barely keep his eyes open.

'Not really, no,' he said.

'Figured,' Sam said and muttered a curse as he attempted and failed to get off the ground. 'I don't know about you, but a ten hour drive home is not high on my priority list right now.' He eyed Dean skeptically, the way he was still hunched over, arm tight around his ribs, breathing short and shallow against the pain. 'I think we better find a place to hole up for the night. Give me the keys.'

Dean forced himself upright, grimacing. 'I'm fine.'

'Like hell.' Sam rolled to his hip and slowly, carefully got his knees under him and managed to lever himself off the ground. He held his hand down to Dean. 'Of the two of us, you may be in slightly better physical repair, but mentally? You're a wreck.'

Dean shot him a dirty look, but slapped the keys in his hand with a mumbled string of curses. He wouldn't let Sam help him up, though, and instead huffed and hissed his way through a series of aborted attempts to get up before he managed to get the right leverage and pull himself off the ground. Sam waited patiently, resisting the urge to roll his eyes, and closed the door once Dean had dropped himself in the passenger seat with another string of grumbling and cursing.

 

It happened again in the shower at the three star motel Sam found forty minutes down the interstate.

One minute Dean was standing under the hottest spray the The Three Pines Motel had to offer, letting the water sluice over his neck and shoulders, rinsing away dried, day-old sweat and blood (and tears, too, if he'd admit it to himself). The next he was clinging to the safety bar, flailing with one hand to shut off the water before his vision completely blacked out, gasping for air that refused to come, and finally calling for Sam before he ended up passing out and breaking his neck.

'Holy shit, Dean!' Sam banged into the bathroom, tore the shower curtain aside, and caught Dean under the arms just as his knees buckled.

Lifting his brother's dead weight out of the shower wasn't an option given the condition Sam was in, so he did the only thing he could and just tried to control his slide down into the tub. He grabbed both towels off the rack and spread them over Dean's shivering body, then settled with his shoulder to the wall, wedged over on his hipbone against the tub edge with one arm tucked as best he could around Dean's shoulders. 

'All right, Dean. That's it. Talk to me. What the _fuck_ is going on?'

Dean's teeth were chattering by now and he was tugging the towel further up around his chest. Sam reached to help him and Dean grabbed his hand in a grip Sam couldn't have broken free of even on his best days, and today certainly wasn't one of those.

'Dean?'

Dean stared at their joined hands for a minute, then finally said, voice rough with an emotion Sam rarely heard from his brother,

'You died, Sammy.'

 _I watched the man I love die_.

'But Dean, I didn't. I only—'

'But I _thought_ you were dead!' Dean shouted.

Sam stared, shocked. 'Dean, you said...'

Dean shook his head. 'I thought you died, Sam.'

'What...' Sam licked his lips, tried again. 'What did you do?'

Dean pressed Sam's hand flat between his own, stared like the contrast in their skin was the most mesmerizing thing in the world. 'The only thing I could do: tried to get you back.'

'H-how?' Sam wasn't actually sure he wanted to hear the answer.

'Made a call to a Reaper.' Sam waited, cringing at what he guessed came next. 'Barbital. Overdose.'

'Jesus Christ.' Sam dipped his head to Dean's shoulder. 'Jesus Christ, Dean.'

Dean said nothing more, just sat and shivered, and held onto Sam's hand. Sam felt like he should be pissed. He _was_ pissed, but it was overridden by the immense relief that Dean hadn't been successful in his misguided venture and the doctor had been able to bring him back. If she hadn't, well, that didn't bear thinking about, not right now. If he did, he'd either fly into a rage or sit down and sob, and he could afford to do neither right now as Dean's shivers started to turn violent and teeth chattering.

'C'mon Dean, we need to get you outta here, get you warm. Think you can stand? Because honestly, I don't think I can lift you right now.'

Dean blinked and looked up at Sam like he was only now seeing the awkward, cramped position he had put himself in beside the tub.

'Hell, Sam, you shouldn't be on this floor,' he said, hefting himself toward standing with a groan at his damaged ribs and now cold-stiff muscles.

'Stop fainting in the damn tub, and I won't have to get on the floor,' Sam retorted, maneuvering up to his knees.

'I did not faint,' Dean objected.

'Near enough.'

'Just shut up and hand me my pants,' Dean gritted through his clacking teeth.

When Dean was dried and dressed in warm sweats and a long sleeve Henley and sitting at the table by the heater that Sam had cranked up on high, Sam sat down across from him and waited.

'Dude, what!' Dean finally said, starting to fidget under Sam's intense stare.

'We need to talk about this,' Sam said.

'We _need_ to check those stitches after all your gymnastics today,' Dean countered.

'Dean—'

'Scoot your ass over here and let me look,' Dean continued, carefully avoiding Sam's gaze.

Sam sighed in resignation and moved to the bed where Dean could reach to gently tug up his t-shirt and reveal the bandaging underneath. He made a face at the small, bright red stain soaking through the gauze.

'Thought so,' he said and carefully peeled away a corner of the tape to reveal three popped stitches leaving the edge of Sam's wound open and bleeding.

'Did I make a mess of the doc's work?' Sam asked.

'Just a little,' Dean replied, going for their med kit. 'Lay back and I'll patch you up.'

Sam did as he was told, not mentioning anything about how much Dean's hands were still shaking. They'd both worked on each other in worse shape.

'Hey, lookie here,' Dean said, settling back on the edge of the bed and waggling a bottle at Sam. 'We've got actual rubbing alcohol this time.'

Sam rolled his eyes. 'You went shopping in the clinic's supply room, didn't you?'

Dean grinned and ducked his head. It was answer enough.

Once he had the needle threaded and was focused on holding the edges of Sam's wound together so he could stitch it, Sam said very quietly,

'I'd really like you to tell me what's going on, Dean.'

Dean ignored him for a minute, the left corner of his bottom lip caught between his teeth in concentration as he tied the first knot, but then,

'Same thing that always happens every time you die, Sammy.'

'Dean, _this_ isn't the same.'

Dean spared him a pained glance. 'You were never around afterward, Sammy. You never saw what a mess I was.'

Sam bit his lip. Dean hadn't said it to make him feel bad, but that didn't mean Sam didn't still feel guilty over making his brother suffer so much.

Dean tied another knot. 'It's really kind of a wonder Bobby ever spoke to me again after that first time, some of the things I said to him. And Lisa? I think there were a lot of days in the beginning she regretted taking me back. So, really, this isn't so new, me being totally fucked up when you just died.'

'But Dean you've never tried to kill yourself before.'

'Yeah, well, I was a little short on time and supplies.' Dean shrugged and tied the last knot, snipped the thread and reached for fresh gauze and tape.

'But Dean, what if they hadn't been able to bring you back, you know what Billie said.' Sam's voice was strained just thinking about the possibility of his brother being dead. Permanently.

_You can't lose him._

Dean locked his jaw against a broken sob and fisted his hands to stop them shaking. Sam pushed up on an elbow, reached to cover one of Dean's fists, thinking he was starting to panic again. 'Dean? Just take a breath, okay?'

Dean shook his head. 'I'm okay. I-I just.' He paused, tried to swallow back the tears threatening at his lashes. 'That—That's the point, Sam. No return trip. No more chances, and I couldn't... I just couldn't.'

He swore softly and jerked the gauze out of its sterile wrapping. Sam laid back again to let Dean tape him up and declare him patched. He started to tug his shirt down, but Dean splayed a hand over the gauze covered wound and stared at it. He spoke softy, without looking up,

'You know, Zachariah was right. We're co-dependent as hell.'

Sam laughed softly. 'It's our version of love, Dean,' he said, covering his brother's hand with his own.

Dean looked up then, eyes bright. 'I don't think love covers it, Sam.'

Sam swallowed and shook his head slowly, heart rate starting to pick up unsteadily. 'No. I think I could throw the whole thesaurus at it and still not come up with the right word to describe what we are...to each other.'

Dean worked his mouth a couple of times, trying to swallow past its sudden dryness. He skated his hand up Sam's chest until it rested over his heart. Sam was holding his breath now, but Dean could still feel the hard out of control thump behind his ribs.

_I watched the man I love die._

_There's no normal after that._

_You can't lose him..._

'No, I can't,' Dean murmured.

'Dean?'

Sam was frozen under his brother's touch, lip still caught between his teeth, eyes big and round and a little wet. Dean just stared at him for a long minute, saw all the Sams over the last thirty-four years all at once in that wide, pleading gaze: the sweet, sticky faced baby who had said Dean's name before he'd even said 'dada'. The chubby-cheeked kid who always talked Dean out of the last bowl of Lucky Charms without saying a word because he'd already learned by three and a half what an asset he had in those sun-catcher eyes of his. The angry, moody teenager who questioned everything and had to have the last word until the day he walked away from John's last words of 'never come back.'

Then there was the angry, moody young man grown up in ways Dean wasn't ready for, grieving for his dead girlfriend-turned-out-to-be-fiancé; the demon blood infected runner-up for Commander of All Hell's Armies; the grieving, desperate younger brother determined to save Dean from his fate worse than death; the psychic blood junky, soulless killer, underdog contender to close the gates of Hell, and the list went on.

It didn't matter what version of himself Sam was, there was never a one of them Dean could have afforded to lose, not one of them he wouldn't have died to protect.

Billie's words were nothing new to him, but her promise brought a kind of immediacy that made Dean bolder than he had ever been before. Because this thing between him and Sam? There was nothing healthy about it, never had been. Maybe it was the way they'd been raised in each other's pockets, learning to protect and defend each other to the death at John's command. Or maybe it was just them. Dean had never really put much stock in Ash's whole soulmate theory, but maybe it was just that simple, or complex, depending on how you looked at it.

'Sam.' Dean licked his lips, leaned up a little, putting pressure on the hand over Sam's heart. 'You gotta know...'

He drifted off. Words hadn't been invented yet for what he wanted to say, _needed_ to say, so he said it with his eyes instead, holding Sam's gaze as he leaned up further, pouring his heart—and his soul, too, beaten and battered as it was—into them in a way he never had for anyone else.

'I do, Dean,' Sam breathed out in acknowledgment of everything Dean was trying to express just before his brother's lips pressed against his, warm and dry and trembling a little.

He tilted his head a fraction and pushed up into the kiss like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do. And it was. Social mores be dammed, Sam had never felt so 'right' in all his life as he did in this moment with Dean's lips cautiously and gently working against his while Sam's broad hands searched for and found the hem of Dean's shirt and very carefully pushed up under it to frame his brother's ribcage, oh so careful not to put pressure on bruised and broken bones.

The spark of _goodrighthomeYES_ that ignited in Dean's belly the moment his mouth met Sam's had Dean reeling again, but for the completely different reason that now Michelle's and Billie's words had meaning. He'd thought they did before, had let the perception of them drive him to the kind of lengths only dramatic poets and the clinically insane would go to to hold onto the person they loved. Sam's lips against his, his hands holding and cradling him, made Dean realize that any meaning he had once clung to was a pale sham in comparison to this certainty that sliced into his soul and cleaved it open to let in all the light that was Sam, that was him and Sam _together_. 

Dean drew back a little, blind and deaf with the shock of it, breathless beyond any panic attack.

'Dean, it's okay,' Sam whispered at his brother's withdraw. 'It's okay. _This_ is okay.'

'I know,' Dean managed dipping his forehead to rest in the hollow between Sam's collarbones. 'I-I know. It's just a lot to—to—' Words failed him again, but Sam nodded against his hair, hands moving to soothe and stroke over Dean's back. 

'Yeah. Yeah, it is,' he agreed.

They laid there for a few minutes, breathing each other in, Sam careful not to hold Dean too tightly, Dean equally careful to keep his weight off Sam's wound, until Sam shifted, ever so little, spreading his knees and pulling them to either side of Dean's hips. Dean slipped easily into the cradle of Sam's thighs, felt the warm, hard length of his little brother in the hollow of his hip.

That warm spark in his belly from earlier, conflagrated into a sudden white hot heat, pooled in his groin and burned through every nerve in his body. He rolled his hips, settled closer, pressed his lips to Sam's throat. Sam moaned softly, bared his throat and tightened his thighs.

'Dean....'

It was Sam's first word, his last word, prayer and plea alike, his 'I love you' and 'I'm yours' and 'take me' all rolled into one.

Dean could barely stay ahead of the fire. The flames were licking at him, devouring him from the inside out. His blood was flowing hot with need, crashing through his veins so that it thundered in his ears and blotted out any other sound. Memories flooded him, the reality of the new rolling back to overlay the old: every moment with Sam, every wasted chance, every careless 'I love you' that spilled past his lips with only half its meaning intact because he couldn't see— He didn't know—

'I didn't know, Sammy,' Dean gasped out, fisting the front of Sam's shirt. 'I didn't, and I should have, so long ago.'

His words were coming in a rush, riding the tidal wave of jumbled, chaotic emotion that was welling up on a sob threatening to tear loose with such force it would leave him shattered. He shook his head, the kisses to Sam's throat and jaw turning desperate and messy as his fingers wound tighter and tighter into the cotton of Sam's shirt.

'I can't, Sam. I-I can't. It's too much.'

Dean was out of breath again, his trembling having become violent shudders that rattled them both bodily. Sam's hands skated up his arms, closed around his biceps, and drew him down with a strength Dean had no power to argue with at the moment despite his trying to keep his weight off Sam's wound.

'Dean, stop,' Sam whispered close to his ear, and somehow Sam's hand had found its way to Dean's left hip and was gripping him, hard enough to stall the little aborted pushes he was making without even realizing.

'Stop,' Sam commanded again, hooking a hand behind Dean's neck and pulling him down. 'Shhh. Shh. It'll come, Dean. Just let it happen. It doesn't need to be anything more than this right now...or ever.' He huffed an amused breath. 'I don't think either of us is in any shape to survive it at the moment.'

Dean didn't answer right away, just lay there wth his face buried in Sam's shoulder while Sam scratched lightly into his hair, blunt nails against his scalp.

'There's just so much, Sam,' he finally managed.

'I know,' Sam agreed. 'But it'll keep Dean. It'll keep.' He tilted his head down to plant a warm, firm kiss to the top of Dean's head. 'I'll be here in the morning. I promise.'

 

Morning brought Dean awake to the smell of black coffee and the sound of the shower running. Sometime during the night, or maybe when he'd gotten up, Sam had propped Dean up on his side with all the pillows both beds had to offer to keep the pain in his ribs at bay so he could sleep as long as possible.

For a few seconds, Dean was sure he'd dreamed everything last night, but there was a warm weight in his chest that had not been there before, and despite it filling him so full he felt like it was going to burst from his every pore in smiles or tears or laughter or _something_ ; it made him feel weightless, too, in way he could never remember being.

The water shut off and a trickle of panic went through him. For one crazy second he wished he'd never given up smoking when he went to get Sam back at Stanford. He could have used the cigarette, something in his hands, anything to put his focus on besides the closed bathroom door.

Sam came out a moment later with a towel loosely wrapped around his waist while he scrubbed at his hair with another. Dean felt himself go stiff, all deer-in-the-headlights, and he had a feeling it showed plain as day in his eyes.

'Relax, Dean.' Sam smiled indulgently and sat down on the bed opposite him. 'I'm not gonna jump your bones or anything. Yet.'

That startled Dean so bad he scowled ferociously, and Sam just laughed.

'Better?' he asked. Dean gave a grudging nod to Sam's successful attempt a shake him out of his emotional paralysis, and Sam reached for one of the two styrofoam cups on the bedside table, and held it out to his brother. 'Here. It should still be hot.'

Dean took the cup gratefully and sipped at it. Sam finished drying his hair and started on his own cup. Dean fidgeted a little in the prolonged silence.

'So...we gonna talk about this?'

Sam lifted an eyebrow. 'You want to?'

'I...' Dean chewed his lip then licked at it, and sucked his tongue back in when he caught a flash of the stark, hungry look on Sam's face before he managed to shut it down. 'No... No, I really don't—'

'Then we won't,' Sam said simply, and Dean was shocked by the lack of disappointment there. Maybe Sam was regretting last night, despite that sudden heated look. Maybe he should just leave well enough alone. It would all work itself out in time. These things always did. One way or another.

'What did she say to you?' Sam asked quietly.

'Huh?' Dean looked up. 'Who?'

'Billie.'

'She, uh,' Dean toyed with his cup, eyes darting away. 'She said I couldn't lose you.'

Sam shrugged easily. 'No revelation there. We've both proved that about each other.'

Dean nodded, continuing to fiddle with his cup. 'It was actually more what Michelle said. Billie was just kind of icing on the cake.'

'Oh?'

'She said...' Dean blew out a slow breath and started again. 'She was pretty broken up, you know?'

'Naturally.'

'And I told her things would eventually go back to normal.'

'Yeah, except how now she knows what makes the 'bump' in the night.',

Dean conceded with a nod. 'I suppose. But she…she looked at me and said that, after everything they survived together, she had to watch the man she loved die.' Dean lifted his gaze to catch Sam's. 'And that there was no normal after that.'

Sam lowered his coffee cup and waited. 

Dean gave a little shake of his head. 'She was right about that, Sam. And Billie? Well, Billie just reminded me of all the scary stupid shit I've done over years to get you back and keep you safe and that this time—' He  swallowed hard. 'This time, none of that's gonna work. No second chances. No returns.'

'Dean—'

'No, let me finish,' Dean held up a hand. 'It's no secret you've always been my weak spot, Sammy, the most important thing to me. First because Dad always said to look out for you and then... Well, it was no stretch at all to love you because of you. 

'There's nothing about the two of us that's normal, Sam. Never was. And if this isn't— If it's too much for you, I understand. Hell, it's almost too much for me. But I can't, and I won't live without this anymore. I didn't even know I was missing it, but Billie... I guess seeing her, thinking you were dead? It woke me up or something, Sam, and I won't go back.'

Sam contemplated his brother over the edge of his cup, the way Dean was holding himself so tightly like he was waiting for Sam to tell him it was all a mistake, the way he was fidgeting with his cup, tearing lit bits off the lip and flicking them onto the floor, probably without even realizing it.

'It was the Mark,' Sam said.

'Huh?' Dean blinked, bewildered.

Sam set his cup aside, folded his long fingers between his splayed knees, and stared at them. 'I've watched you die so many times, Dean, I can't even keep count, and the last time when Metatron killed you, I thought that was it. I was going to lose my shit— _had_ lost it. I was ready to summon Crowley and deal or trade, coerce or kill, whatever it took to get you back.' He wound his fingers together tightly, still not looking up. 'But then you came back, and you were a demon, and I cured you, but you were still gone. You were right there, right next to me like you always had been, but you weren't _there_.'

'Sam, I'm sorry.' Dean whispered, because he didn't have anything else to offer.

'No,' Sam shook his head. 'You don't have to be sorry. That's not the point. I-I thought the worst I would ever have to do was watch you die bloody. Here one minute, gone the next. I was wrong.

'I had to watch you die slowly, a little more every day, while that thing on your arm ate you up inside. I was so afraid once I finally got it off of you that there wouldn't be enough left to save, but I had to do it. I knew then that there was nothing worse I could ever watch happen than for you to be taken from me by that _thing_ one second of my life at a time; and when I did succeed? I swore I was never letting go again. Ever.'

Dean stared at him, jaw slack. 'Why didn't you say something, Sammy?'

Sam shrugged, finally looking up. 'What was there to say? I had you back. You were you. You were happy—well, as much as you could be with both of us alive, Death out of commission, and the Darkness on the loose. I had my brother back. It wasn't worth alienating you because I'd had some personal epiphany on exactly how many levels I loved you, and most of them way outside the bounds of brotherly affection.' 

'Sam, I almost killed you.' Dean's voice was ragged.

'And I was okay with that because Death was right: I was never going to rest until I had you back. I'd left rational so far behind, nothing was going to stop me from saving you. No sacrifice was too much, except to lose you all over again.'

Sam's eyes had filled up again and before he thought about it, Dean reached out and cupped his brother's jaw, thumbed one wayward tear from his cheek. Sam turned his face into Dean's palm, brushed his lips against the warm, rough skin. Dean shuddered and leaned in, feeling that same spark from last night start to set the tinder in his belly on fire. Sam circled Dean's wrist with his fingers and pulled him across the space between the beds.

'Sam, I don't know if I can—' Dean started, but Sam leaned in and pressed a warm, closed mouth kiss to his lips.

'Then don't,' Sam whispered into Dean's mouth. 'I'll take this. I'll take anything. I'll take nothing at all, Dean. Except what we are now. Nothing has to change.'

Sam's voice was catching, a little desperate, and Dean realized he had repositioned himself across Sam's thigh, pressing hard into his groin, and Sam's hands were curled around Dean's hips, tugging him persistently closer. Dean reared back a little, dragging in a breath.

'Things have already changed,' he gasped as Sam nipped at the corded muscle running down the side of his neck. He groaned and pulled away, caught Sam's face between his hands and stared down into the wide-blown pupils of his eyes. 'I don't think I want them to go back.'

Sam's eyes flashed wide for a moment and then he pushed upward, capturing Dean's mouth again and when Dean felt the first slippery, silken stroke of Sam's tongue against his bottom lip, he moaned out loud and wiggled closer into the crook of Sam's hip. One if Sam's hands dropped to wrap around the back of Dean's thigh and pull it in tight between his legs so Dean could feel the hard, hot length of his brother's erection.

'We are so very fucked up,' Dean mumbled around their kiss that had grown hungrier, a little sloppy, and a whole lot deeper.

'This is news?' Sam managed, breathless.

Dean huffed a laugh before he married their tongues again in a twisting clash that made Sam groan and buck upward hard. Dean shifted his weight and twisted to bring them down onto the bed, Sam mostly sprawled over Dean and minus his towel.  Anyone else might have started getting a little embarrassed at this point, but they had lived in each other's space all their lives, owned each other's skin, every square inch, like it was their own, so none of it mattered.  They had skinny dipped and then dried themselves naked on the sand in the sun, right up until Sam left for Stanford and after he came back, because there was no point in spending money on trunks. They had shared beds, out of necessity and for comfort, more often than not; rubbed each other off, sleep muzzy and overheated from nightmares, just so they could sleep the rest of the night in dreamless peace. 

Besides that, Dean was a man of action, of physical expression all along the spectrum from fighting to fucking. He'd never trusted words. They could too easily be skewed, misunderstood and misconstrued on both sides. He considered them a coward's weapon because the kills were never clean and the wounds they left behind always got infected. They had their uses. Sam proved that time and again with all the people they encountered, but he proved Dean's point too, manipulating information from the poor dumb saps they interrogated during their hunts, and telling lie after lie to get them what they wanted and needed.

Between themselves, though, Sam was as silent as Dean, having learned long ago the translation of all his brother's touches, the subtle shifts in his expression, even just the shine of his eyes in low light. It all meant something to Sam and held a deeper meaning than any spoken words.

Dean got a hand between them, hooking the waistband of his sweats and baring his own aching, heated flesh. Sam's breath rebounded in his chest at the shock that jolted through his system from the skin on skin contact. He sucked the air from Dean's lungs and broke the kiss on a shattered outcry as Dean's fingers wrapped around them both and stroked, already warm and wet and ready.

'Ain't gonna be pretty,' Dean growled, rolling up into his own stroking grip while Sam got his hands braced beside Dean's shoulders and lifted up, giving his brother room to work.

Sam shook his head, words too far beyond what he could manage right now, damp hair falling forward into his eyes. Dean nearly lost it the second Sam pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and threw his head back, body arcing all lean and spare and lovely in the thin slant of white morning light that cut through the curtains and highlighted every dip and cut of muscle, every ridge an ruined patch of skin in the maze of scars written across his body that told the story of them—how they had lived, how they had died, and come back from the furthest reaches to do it all over again. For each other.

The pressure that built in his chest at the sight of his baby brother leaning up over him, at the realization of what he had—had _always_ had—right here with him, nearly punched a hole straight through him. For just a second, he thought his heart was going to beat right out of his chest. He tightened his grip, thrust upward. Sam gave a low, choked cry, and Dean felt his grip slip as Sam came all over his hand, hot and wet and—

Dean shouted something, a curse or Sam's name, he couldn't be sure which, louder than he intended, and poured himself out in a slick, sticky hot mess between them.

' _Not_ my finest showing,' Dean panted, extricating his hand from between them and threading the fingers of his clean one into Sam's hair at the base of his skull.

Sam chuckled against his shoulder, still trying to catch his breath. 'We'll make up for it next time.'

Dean nodded into Sam's hair, pushed to tears by the idea that there was going to be a next time, lots of them if they could just survive the Darkness and Dean had anything to say about it.

'Dean?' Sam queried at his brother's sudden silence. He tried to lift his head, but Dean held it tucked down against his shoulder.

'Yeah, Sammy. Next time,' Dean rasped, kissing his hair and tightening his hold. 'And the time after that.'

Sam nodded, as much as Dean's hold would allow, because he could feel the tension in his brother's body, knew there was a whole lot of emotion in there all mixed up and building toward critical mass, and he didn't want to tip the scales on that yet. Dean wasn't ready, and Sam wasn't so sure he was either. There was a lot that went with this. Things had changed and would change and now that they'd left off their immortality, so to speak, the balance between them would inevitably become even more precarious. Sam had no doubt there would be strong whisky involved in the hashing out of this new thing between them, and miles of Metallica and Dean brooding in the seat beside him, but Sam was patient. He would wait.

There was one less wall between them now. They were one step closer together, and even Dean at his worst with the Mark on his arm, had still known the one simple truth the universe held as constant as it did gravity and the earth's orbit around the sun:

They were stronger together than they were apart.

Sam was going to see to it that they stayed together for a good long while. He wound his arms tight around Dean's chest and squeezed as hard as he dared against broken bones.

 'And all the times after that, too,' he whispered.


End file.
